Voices against Anna Hazare, so far inaudible in the course of his high-decibel campaign, are getting louder. A section of civil society activists, Dalit leaders and some legal experts are gearing up to counter the Hazare wave. Their gripe: Hazare’s movement is teetering on the edge of “fascism”. Udit Raj, a Dalit heavyweight and head of the All-India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, will storm India Gate on August 24 with followers to...

-The Business Standard   Hurling charges against political opponents is par for the course in democratic politics. No one can object too much to political name calling, such as, “so and so is a fascist” or “so and so is communal”, and such like. Politicians routinely hurl such invective at each other. Less excusable is innuendo, but there is a lot of that too in politics around the world. However, what Technology...

-MensXP.com While everyone has been animatedly supporting Anna Hazare's fight against corruption, people seem to have forgotten who the people are who actually led to this situation. The peak of irony was when Anna was, allegedly, lodged in the same jail that housed the people who were responsible for two of the biggest scams in the country ever. How must the authorities have felt when they saw Raja and Kalmadi fill their...

August is usually the preferred month fo­r family holidays in Eu­­rope, because of ab­­undant sunshine and warm weather. In India, normally, this is the south-west monsoon season and a busy period for farmers. This year, ho­wever, several farm families in coastal Andhra Pradesh, the ri­ce bowl of the country, are repo­rted to have declared ‘crop holiday’. This is because the rice mills have not been lifting even last years’ crop....

Bringing an aggressive outlook to the ministry of rural development, Jairam Ramesh, who took charge of the portfolio in July, has attempted to address and fast-track contentious issues such as the proposed land acquisition legislation and the census for identifying households below the poverty line (BPL). Ramesh spoke in an interview about his blueprint for the ministry and revisiting controversial elements, including identifying the poor and poverty caps imposed by...